Index

Soho record shop Phonica has been dedicated to unearthing the best and most forward-thinking electronic music for nine years. It's the first place that DJs dig for the latest dancefloor cuts before their weekend gigs, and its discerning reputation has helped expand the brand into a clutch of labels and an occasional party. We talk to Phonica manager Simon Rigg, one of the Soho record shop’s founding members, about vinyl sales, their ninth birthday and the sounds of now.

This year I edited Time Out London's 2012 Festival Guide and we put one of my favourite bands, Hot Chip, on the cover. I interviewed them about their forthcoming (and ruddy excellent) new album 'In Our Heads' and sleeping through festival performances. Here's the original version on Time Out but you can read the extended version after the jump.

Parisian techno producer Brodinski tells Kate Hutchinson how he has spun his feelings into a new mix for the Fabric compilation series to celebrate the art of DJing and the life of his late friend, DJ Mehdi…

I've also just found the first Mixmag piece I wrote this year on the delightful house DJ Cassy as part of their 'Queens of the Underground' cover feature in May. At some point, I'll post the interview in full because she was quite simply just awesome. But for now, here she is talking about Miami Winter Music Conference, playing at DC10 and how gender boundaries can go fuck themselves.

Look how excited he is! Yes, Mylo, he of "Da da da da, drop the pressure" fame is back. He has been, like, throwing underground parties an' that at Dalston Superstore in east London for most of the year. But on October 8, he gonna take it to XOYO once more with Ed Banger young gun Breakbot and loads of other face-splitting electro DJs.

Read my interview with him from waaay back in May after the jump. It's all about comebacks and Charles Kennedy. WIN.

Electro big-hitters come and go, but this year, the likes of Daft Punk, Justice, Cassius, MSTRKRFT and even Digitalism have returned with a synth-heavy wallop. So it feels like good timing that Myles MacInnes - better known to the world as Mylo - is fighting back this year with them.

Mylo's disappearance from the music world baffled everyone, from his fans (of which he still has plenty) to critics, for whom it is has become an insider's joke. The Hackney-based Scot hasn't released anything since his massive 'Detroy Rock & Roll' album in 2004, bar a couple of low-key remixes and Mixmag cover CDs, having been stuck in music industry purgatory for nearly five years.

But in the last two months, and armed with a new synthetic disco sound, Mylo has been putting on small word-of-mouth parties, Ecstasy, Passion & Pain, at Dalston Superstore, with the pork-pie-hat-topped help of Andy Peyton, who books Get Loaded, Together and Moda.

Before his headline set at the latest Moda night at XOYO this weekend, we caught up with the producer and were delighted to find him chirpy, insightful and, despite being out of current music for so long, incredibly interesting. In his first interview in we-can't-remember-how-long, he reveals why he's been out of the spotlight for such a long time, why he might never tour again, getting banned from Space Ibiza and how he's been larging it with the Lib Dems.

Mylo, where have you been?
For reasons I'm not at liberty to discuss, I haven't been able to release music in a couple of years, but hopefully it's not going to stay that way for ever. It's been quite frustrating in parts; I can't believe that it has been so long now! I stopped promoting the first album in 2006, and I didn't think that the next four years were going to pan out the way that they did. I've continued to do the occasional DJ gig, which is what I never set out to do. But I've really enjoyed it. I've also spent time working on new material and remixes, of which I have a fair bit now, and I just need to work out whether I should come back with it in some ridiculous way that involves a triple album or something! But, seriously, I'm just really looking forward to being able to release again.

Do you feel under pressure?
Perhaps in 2007 I did, but now there's been so much water under the bridge, and I've continued in a much more eccentric and not very 'pop' kind of way. I listen to the stuff in the Top 40 now and I think, that's not where I want to be. And to be perfectly honest, I don't know whether I want to set foot inside a tour bus again either: they are smelly, claustrophobic, carpeted submarines. I had a blast the first time, but it was a bit of an accident and I'm not going to spend the next few years trying to consciously replicate that.
How did your secret pop-up nights at Dalston Superstore come about?
I'm a real fan of the place; I find it really fun and inclusive. I ended up hanging out there quite a lot and then they had a few Fridays free, and it all happened very quickly. I wanted a night that summed up the over-the-top drama of disco music, and Ecstasy, Passion & Pain were a disco band in the 1970s, so it fitted well. I enjoy the melodrama of disco, definitely.

Is it part of a comeback masterplan?
[Laughs] I'd love to say yes, but I'm not sure I believe in comebacks. I'm just glad to do this in the meantime. I don't know how long we'll keep going with it - at the moment we've got a policy for Belgian-only disco DJ guests, as it's at the forefront of the new new nu-disco sound - so I think we'll just keep going until we run out of Belgians. We had my friends Villa play last Friday, and then The Magician, formerly of Aeroplane, is the next guest. I'd love to have The Glimmers come over and play, but it's a free club, so I have to rely on favours to make it work. I can't imagine being able to book Soulwax anytime soon!

It's a very nu-disco path you're going down - how did you start out in that direction?
During the last year or so, I've moved away from the electro noise scene. My interest started out with Italo and the cheesy, synthetic side of it and then that eventually broadened out into other sub-genres: boogie and so on. I must admit, the classic idea of disco with a diva wailing over a percussive background doesn't quite do it for me, but it's all the other interesting bits in and around that that I like. I think it's an amazing time for disco music.

On your Facebook, you've posted up a lot of political articles, particularly about the recent AV referendum - is activism an important part of your life now?
It's not something that I ever thought I'd be doing, but I was really proud that the Yes To Fair Votes AV campaign approached me. I've always grown up with Charles Kennedy - he was the constituency MP in Skye - so I'm a big fan. I think that Charles Kennedy, drunk, is a much better leader than David Cameron, sober! They had some parties in London that I DJ'd for and that had a few Lib Dem politicians there. Then I went door-to-door with the Lib Dems in the Cazenove ward in Stoke Newington a few weeks ago - although it's a big orthodox Jewish area and I don't think they vote much, so I don't know how much effect it had.

You could have slipped everyone a new mix CD too, that might have helped?
That's an idea that I should have had! I was quite a depressing eye-opener, though. Of course, everyone was unhappy about how the vote went…

Obviously there are exceptions, but it's unusual for DJs to be open about politics - it's quite an 'electro taboo'.
I care a lot about politics, but I don't spend a lot of time online trying to promote anything. The first album I made wasn't, other than quite blatantly taking the piss out of American fundamentalism and so on, much of a “political record”. But I had a lot of respect for [electronic producer] Ewan Pearson this week - he wrote an incredibly succinct blog about the ethics of playing in Israel. The complete absence of politics in music these days compared to 25 or 30 years ago isn't great, but DJs make party music and people don't suddenly want to be thumped over the head with some well-intentioned political music at the same time. Then again, I'm not aware of anyone “unfollowing” me on Facebook because I posted up a few links to a campaign. And I don't really mind being seen as a well-intentioned lefty who got completely fucked over by the Tories!
Will you tour again?
A lot of things have changed; the friends who I did the live show with are off doing different thing, so I don't know whether there'll be a band. I've an aversion to touring, so we'll see what happens. I imagine that there will be a CD and it will be available. And I'm playing at some festivals, and at one of the better, crazy, smaller raves at Secret Garden Party [on the main stage, as well as a secret set elsewhere]. And I'm going to play at Space in Ibiza in a few weeks, which will be great because I've been unofficially blacklisted there.

How did you manage that?
I played an unbelievably bad set. It was about 10 o'clock in the morning, I don't think I'd been to bed and it was a trainwreck in every possible way. The mixing was messy and the music was perhaps wrong as well. I thought what I was playing was quite cool - I even played 'Space is the Place', a classic electro track. But, in any case, I was notoriously terrible at DJing to begin with and now I hope I've got the hang of it.

As the huge row over Skrillex supposedly "ruining" dubstep erupted on both sides of the Atlantic, I interviewed him for my Red Bull blog and found him to be rather endearing and generally very sweet. Here, he talks about why he's not a dubstep artist.

As the biggest – and busiest – star in electronic music since Deadmau5, who, incidentally, signed an early Skrillex tune to his label last year and thus launched him into the sonic stratosphere, it’s amazing that electro-house mash-up merchant Skrillex finds time to even Tweet.

But this week, the 23-year-old Los Angeles-based producer set Owsla, his new imprint, bounding off into the open, with two cryptic (and oddly freaky) virals signaling its arrival (make up your own mind). He tells us who’s up first for release – and what he really thinks about dubstep’s explosion in America.

What was your first encounter with dubstep music?
In 2007, a friend of mine from Orange Country was like: ‘There’s this new night out in LA, you gotta check it out: it’s dubstep.’ It was called Smog – the label that brought dubstep to the US and to North America, run by 12th Planet, who was previously Infiltrator, a drum ’n’ bass artist from LA. It was the first dubstep party in the West Coast. That was the first time I heard dubstep, and after that I remember going to a record shop and asking for ‘a dubstep CD’ and being pointed over to Burial’s Archangel. That was my first album.
Would you call your music "dubstep"?
It’s to get the point across than anything else. I don’t readily associate or disassociate with it. I would not call myself a dubstep artist and I wouldn’t say that I make dubstep music: I just make electronic music…computer music. People are talking about me as ‘America’s dubstep artist’, but if you listen to my sets, I’m not a dubstep artist. I don’t just play dubstep, I play everything from dancehall to moombahton, to hip hop and electro to drum ’n’ bass, the hard stuff to the sexy stuff – I play it all. I just happen to have big tunes that are 140bpm and in half time and those happen to be some of my more popular tunes.

Why has dubstep taken off like it has in America?
I think ‘bass music’ is a better term. It is big but electronic music in America is the biggest it’s ever been as well. I think that’s a big part of why it seems so popular.

What is it like when you play a show there?
Some of them have been pretty decent: venues of 6,000 people. Here’s the crazy thing to me, though: I’m friends with a lot of UK producers like Flux Pavilion and Doctor P and a good night for them in the UK is playing in front of 800 people. I was like, ‘Dudes, wait until you come out to the US, you’re gonna smash over here.’ Thier tunes have been so influential in the US, it’s a part of what brought dubstep to a younger crowd. When they finally toured America [in June this year], they were selling out 4,000-capacity rooms! It’s crazy.

There are a few people on internet forums that say that you’ve “ruined dubstep”. What’s your view?
It’s funny because all the dubstep purist guys that actually make music that pioneered the scene are all my friends. There’s no hate within the music scene at all. It’s people that have nothing to do with anything who are so critical, and think they have ownership of something, but no one owns it. It can be whatever it wants to be. I hear all this shit that dubstep is dying and it’s changing. And it’s like, dude, at the end of the day, the records that you like will always be there. And unless you’re going out and buying tickets to my shows, you don’t have to worry about me bothering you, unless you go out of your way.
What’s next for you?
I’ve got a record label started I’ll be releasing a Porter Robinson EP pretty soon. It’s one kid; he’s 18 years old and has just graduated from high school. He’s just started making four-to-the-floor electro-house stuff, and his new EP goes from that and dubstep to trancey stuff and moombahton. The label is called Owsla. You know the book Watership Down by Richard Adams? It’s a book about rabbits, and the Owsla are the elite army of rabbits: they are the badass rabbits that kill all the other rabbits. It sounds quite evil when I say it that way, but it’s a beautiful book and a beautiful story, and I think it’s a really nice word.

Skrillex’s The Mothership Tour kicks off 51 US dates on September 17, with a huge number of international festival dates before then. He heads to the UK with Flux Pavilion and Koan on November 16.

I can't believe I haven't updated since Febs. UGH. But, due to onset of further lazi-nests, here's a linkstastic round-up off things I've liked in late February and March. And when I say liked, I mean, written about.

An interview with Miss Beth Ditto

“Can you give me a minute? I need to do a number two. You can put that in your article – Beth Ditto needs a poo!” the singer in question howls down the corridor after me.

And so, as instructed by Miss Ditto herself, I do. Here you have it. The journalist I greet as I leave her hotel room, however, looks bemused. Whatever he was hoping for, for his first impressions of the popstar, it certainly wasn’t that she washes her hands afterwards.

A version of this article first appeared in Time Out's Valentine's Issue, 2011.

It's the weekend before Valentine's Day and everybody is doing it. DJing, we mean. You filthy lot. Like rockland, clubland also has its Gwen Stefanis and Gavin Rossdales (minus the love children, we imagine) and many of them are playing at parties this weekend, just like house duo Bearweasel at Fabric on Saturday and this frisky lot below.

As it happens, I'll also be spinning in, erm, the name of love: in the 'kissing booth' at Nauti.Cool at The Book Club on Friday with my better half, where there will also be couples-only sets from the likes of Zara from Peanut Butter Jelly Time and her beau, Tim of the Filthy Dukes.

But is it all just a good excuse for a grope behind the turntables? Or does the relationship dynamic lend itself to skillz outside the sheets? We grilled four couples to find out what makes them tick…

Richard Young and Sophie Ellis-Bextor (above)
Pop siren Sophie and her husband Richard, from indie band The Feeling, are resident DJs at Love to Love at The Bathhouse in Liverpool Street.

Sophie 'We have a nocturnal lifestyle, as do many of our friends, so we started a club night, Modern Love, and did whatever DJing we could around that. I've collaborated with many DJs on songs over the years and have picked up tips where I can. Richard and I are still learning, but we've come on a lot since the early days, and now we're always at Love to Love. We once did a Guilty Pleasures night: I took the whole thing a bit too literally and played some Daphne and Celeste. I don't think I'll ever revisit that!'
Richard 'We have similar tastes, but I'm more into the heavy stuff, whether that's dubstep or Rage Against The Machine and, when it comes down to it, Sophie can be quite typically girly: she'd rather have something fun to dance to over something clever. We get excited about playing new things very loudly and having a bit of a dance - and if one of us wants to have a boogie on the dancefloor or needs a refill, there's always one of us left to play the next song, which is great. But, like a typical boy, sometimes I hog the mixer and Sophie doesn't get a look-in!'

Top Valentine track Candi Staton's 'Young Hearts Run Free'.
See them next at Addicted to Love to Love: The Masked Ball at The Bathhouse on Friday February 11.

Sunta Templeton and Liam Young
Sunta, an Xfm host, and her DJ boyfriend Liam can usually be found at the Queen of Hoxton in Shoreditch and at indie parties across the world.

Sunta 'We met at Xfm's New Year's Eve party in 2008, where we were both booked to DJ. It was gone midnight, I was quite drunk and all my mates were getting a New Year's kiss from somebody, so I went to find the cocky but very-good-looking guy, Liam, that I'd met in the dressing-room earlier. He was wasted, but I got my kiss before he threw up and passed out on a couch. Now we DJ everywhere together: promoters will get us two-for-one because neither of us is very good at staying at home. But Mat Horne's Session at the Queen of Hoxton is our monthly residency: we've celebrated two anniversaries behind the decks there!'

Liam 'According to Sunta, I also pretended that Alex Zane had thrown her CDs out of the window that night! Ourtastes are quite similar, but she likes a lot of Britpop and I don't. Apart from that, we'veintroduced each other to a lot of new stuff, which keeps our sets interesting. I'm quite stubborn and if I don't like a song she plays, I sulk. Also, I throw CDs and don't put them back in the right places. But we have an amazing time together; we only need to take one record bag and we're guaranteed a pull at the end of the night!'

Top Valentine track 'Baby I Love You' by The Ramones.
See them next at The 25th Hour at the Queen of Hoxton on Friday February 11.

Christian Nockall and Rachel Barton
Christian and Rachel DJ from London to Ibiza and run bi-monthly club night Lively at The Nest in Dalston.

Christian 'We play back to back at Lively, although I have been known to leave Rachel to it so I can get pissed. We don't really argue behind the decks, but Rachel usually ends up asking me where all the vodka has gone! We share an appreciation of quality house music: we both love the jackin', boompty, percussive kind. That's why we decided to start Lively, to showcase those kinds of sounds and book DJs we love.'

Rachel 'We've run sold-out parties at Notting Hill Carnival for the last two years, but in 2010 we ran it under the Lively name and thus our joint club night was born. We work together on it really well: it's very democratic and we'll ask each other about the next track to play as we know all of each other's records. It's rare that Christian won't like something I like and vice versa. But Christian is more into house records that build for a long time, whereas I'm a little less patient and like something to happen more quickly!'

Emergency floor-filler Zombie Disco Squad's remix of Black Box's 'Ride on Time'.
See them next at Lively at The Nest on Friday February 11. Rachel is also appearing at Annie Mac Presents at Koko on Saturday February 12.

angieb&dogtanian

Angie B and Dogtaniaun
Funky house DJ Angie and her MC-host husband Michael (aka Dogtaniaun) play all over London and have a weekly show on Rinse FM.

Angie B 'We were doing a radio show together on Deja Vu for eight years, but after two years it progressed into a relationship. He was very persistent! Even when we met, at a night called Freedom at Bagleys, where I was DJing and he was the MC, he was still talking about me on the mic to the audience while I was walking out of the door and another girl was on the decks. She wasn't impressed! Orlando, our four-year-old son, picks up the mic and sings, but he doesn't quite get it at the moment. We take him to the radio show with us and he always wants to get on the mic, but we have to switch him off after a while!'

Dogtaniaun 'Because we weren't in a relationship first, we'd got our set choreographed already and had figured out the way we worked. It's more than a physical attraction with us: she takes the lead, tells me off when she wants to and then we carry on as normal! Sometimes stuff does come out on air, though: two weeks ago, I got two parking tickets in the space of an hour. When I told her about the first one, she took it quite well; but when it came to the second, she lost it a bit.'

Top Valentine track 'Superman' by Black Coffee featuring Bucie.
See them next at The Fridge on Sunday February 13 when Angie B DJs at Persona's Valentine's Edition; Angie B and Dogtaniaun are at Sting at Mustard Bar on Saturday February 19; and catch them every Saturday 3-5pm on Rinse FM (www.rinse.fm).

Like Hyperdub, Hotflush, Hemlock and other labels beginning with 'H', Hessle Audio is redefining the sound of UK dance music. It procures a futuristic blend of homegrown genres like dubstep, house, garage and jungle - a genreless smörgåsbord represented in mainstream by BBC Sound of 2011 winner James Blake, who released a single on the label last year - and eschews them for a new school of electronic fans.

The imprint is led by young London-based producers Ramadanman (22-year-old David Kennedy), Pangaea (Kevin McAuley, 25) and Ben UFO (Ben Thomson, 24), who met each other at dubstep night FWD>> in London, and named after the road that the latter two lived on during their university years in Leeds. Now in their early twenties, their output is on everyone from minimal superstar Ricardo Villalobos to techno legend Carl Craig's radar.

Read the full interview with the future stars of London nightlife on Time Out London HERE.

Polly Jean Harvey’s illustrious career makes the kind of Herculean reading that causes our over-anxious generation of success-hungry twentysomethings to quake in its distressed leather army boots. At 42, she has released eight enviably diverse records, won the Mercury Music Prize in 2001 for one of them, Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea, been nominated for every music gong going, collaborated with the likes of Josh Homme and former beau Nick Cave and topped innumerable ‘Best Of Being Awesome’ polls. She has even scored a Broadway production of Hedda Gabler – and that’s all just a Wikipedia-crunching taster.

Last week I interviewed rock royalty PJ Harvey about her forthcoming (eighth) album 'Let England Shake' for Drowned in Sound. I fought the urge to call her 'Peej' and instead chatted politics, gothic churches and Harold Pinter. All very high brow, you understand.

Read an extract from the interview HERE HERE HERE. And expect the interview up on the same site very soon.

Cramming Andrew Weatherall’s vast, multi-genred career into a teensy paragraph feels quite unjust. Not least because, while many of his acid house contemporaries have wafted away with the spirit of ’89, bushy-faced Weatherall has remained ahead of the curve.

His sonic CV dances through helping to kickstart Britain’s rave-in-a-field dance culture as part of fanzine collective Boys Own, all the way up to, most recently, producing Fuck Buttons’ latest album and his first solo record, ‘A Pox on the Pioneers’. That’s all while regularly banging the bollocks out of the best house and techno across the world, digging around in his rockabilly crates for the occasional pub-club set and working with a new studio partner, Tim Fairplay, the former guitarist of Battant.

And yet, despite these enviable credentials, you can still find him DJing regularly in the captial, whether it’s at his new and intimate disco night with Sean Johnston at The Drop, A Love From Outer Space, or spinning for Primal Scream, as he did at the end of last month when the band played through the seminal – and Weatherall-produced – album ‘Screamadelica’ over two nights at London Olympia.

Perhaps ‘Wevvers’ himself will have better luck at this cramming lark, then. This weekend he’s the latest techno star to step up for the A Night With… series, where DJs weave all of their influences into a seamless eight-hour journey at a warehouse somewhere in east London.

I find out what exactly to expect from the dark earl of eclectronica…

What was it like to DJ at Primal Scream’s Screamadelica shows at the end of last month?
"It was amazing. I was in bed for days afterwards. I didn’t eat – my idea of sustenance was chocolate milk with
a triple shot of brandy in it. When I got in there, it was a bit like drowning: my whole life flashed in front of me. But the music itself, I don’t think it was an exercise in nostalgia, it was an exercise in timelessness. I think it still sounds futuristic. It felt good standing at the side of the stage watching 10,000 people going bananas. I said to the guys: 'Who’d have thought that 20 years later we’d end up in an aircraft hanger in west London?'"

What should we expect from your set on Saturday?
"I don’t think there’s going to be any rock ’n’ roll or rockabilly. It’s going to be my more dance-orientated stuff."

You mean a lot of different things to a lot of different people: has that multiplicity worked in your favour?
"Sometimes. People like to know what they’re getting; they don’t want surprising. It can lead to great excitement when they learn of a new facet to you, but it can lead to people wanting to kill you, as happened in Cork last year. I turned up to an arts festival there to play rockabilly, which they’d advertised, and a load of people had travelled for miles to hear me play techno. I played three records and a girl came up to me and did that fingers-across-the-throat motion right in my face. I thought, right, I’m going to have to twat someone in a minute. And in the age of the cameraphone, I don’t want to be a YouTube sensation, you know: 'Veteran acid house DJ in drubbing incident'. So I slunk out the back door while the bouncer protected me."

Blimey. What are your toilet break tracks?
"Probably something by Ricardo Villalobos, although one would be long enough for a spot of light lunch, followed by a toilet break!"

Yes, I imagine you might need a snack in eight hours.
‘The thing is, there’s going to be photographers present and people with camera phones. When I was younger, I didn’t look at my favourite cool pop stars and think, 'Oh, look at that picture of Marc Bolan eating a bun'. I try to avoid getting photographed eating, or defecating, or pissing: it’s never a good look."

Carl Craig did a session at Plastic People last month and he ordered in a pizza for the duration.
"I’ve got a full-on Romanov-style facial hair, though, so imagine me trying to eat a stringy pizza. I could go from hero to zero in one bite of a pepperoni!"

It used to be that you could get away with a lot in the DJ booth…
"You’d think so, wouldn’t you? I’ve been almost caught a couple of times. The funniest one was at T in the Park and, admittedly, it was in front of about 5,000 people, but I thought that the DJ area was closed off and no one could see. So I was about to indulge in something naughty and I thought, I’d better have a look round, and I noticed that there were two 30-foot projector screens showing what I was about to do!"

I’ve noticed that you’ve gone from the rockabilly to Edwardian look…
"It’s a seasonal thing; Edwardian is much warmer for the winter. And if you see yourself as an explorer, why not dress like one?"

Has anything else changed lately?
"It’s actually the first time in years that I look forward to coming into work! I’ve got a finished second album too, but, due to legal difficulties, it won’t be coming out. Part of me though, perversely, is pleased that I’m one of those producers who has got a ‘lost album’ that, hopefully, will gain mythical status way beyond its critical worth."

Your mantra at the turn of 2000 was ‘promote or die’. What’s 2011’s?
"It’s not ‘selling out’, it’s ‘buying in’. Scruples come with a bank balance. It’s why Bono and Sting can save the world, you know what I mean?"

This month, I got the chance to chat for an exceedingly long time about what every superstar DJ dreams of talking about in an interview: Basingstoke. Or as James Zabiela, my incredibly patient DJ interviewee likes to call it: Amazingstoke. But aside from talking up my home town, he also chats about his new label, his favourite new sounds, his love for Japan, DJing with an iPad and playing Time Out Live's Nite Sessions club night at the beginning of the month. Basingstokers (and all the millions of Zabiela fans out there), enjoy…

We finally got hold of each other! You must be one of the busiest men in dance music…
'Probably the busiest and the laziest. It’s not a good combination.'

Thanks so much for curating the next Nite Sessions.
'I’m really looking forward to it.'

Good. What’s it going to be like for you play such an intimate venue? You’re used to playing to thousands of people!
'Really good, although I’m actually more nervous about this than I am about doing big raves. Because it’s so intimate, people can really see the whites of your eyes and I find it quite intimidating sometimes. But it means that musically I’ll get to play a more interesting set and I can take more risks, whereas if you’re playing a big rave or festival, you have to play to that size room, just larger epic tracks than what you can play in a small club. I don’t get to play small gigs that often, just occasionally, and it’s something I do enjoy. I love doing the big rave gigs because they’re really exciting and have lots of energy but there’s just something about doing a small party with people you know and friends and stuff. In some ways, it’s more of a social thing.'

What can we expect from your set nowadays?
'I’ve always been someone who plays a bit of everything, but recently I’ve become even more eclectic than usual. I’ve been listening to a lot of music and some of it wouldn’t always translate so well on the dancefloor. So I guess what I’ve been trying to do is finding ways to play things that aren’t so much dancefloor records or geared for the raves, but that are just electronic. Part of the challenge is getting to play those tracks and programming them into the set.'

I’ve noticed that you’ve been getting into all that ‘future’ electronic stuff like Ramadanman and Untold…
'Yeah, definitely. Ramandanman is a bit of a late discovery for me but I’ve been talking to him and he’s been sending me some of his new stuff and I love it. The space he gets in his productions is incredible. They sound quite stripped back and bare but really full at the same time and he’s such a huge talent. I just assumed his name was Dan because of his name, but it’s actually David.'

What do love about those sounds at the moment?
'The reason I’ve started to get into it more recently is because that wobble stereotype LFO bassline dubstep, that really gnarley stuff, has split off into its own thing, and the kind of stuff that Ramadanman and Midland and some of the other guys are making is that it walks the line of different genres and speaks to me on different levels. I’ve never had this issue before with filing music in my iTunes, but this is far more difficult: I can’t decide whether it’s a house record, or a dubstep record, or techno, or breakbeat. Now that these guys are branching out, the genre line is blurring and they walk the fine line between techno, deep house, electro-house and dubstep and it’s really refreshing to see all those things mixed up. And it’s perfect for me because I’m the most confused DJ in the world and have so many different styles. I got this amazing Headhunter remix the other week, who we were going to get to play the night, but it didn’t materialise in the end, and it was 140bpm and it was all made with what I would consider deep house pads and organs and stuff but with a dubstep-type rhythm underneath it. It’s just great to hear things that are made in different and more exciting ways. I’ve never been a fan of trends and stuff so as soon as the dubstep thing exploded a few years ago I got disinterested in it. The same as the minimal techno explosion. In fact, most of the music I play comes out of Germany, but none of it is minimal techno, just amazing great electronic artists like Modeselektor and Moderat and Ellen Alien and Apparat. It’s nice that this isn’t this attitude where it’s like, you can only like minimal techno music, or, you can’t play any music with key changes in it.'

You said this gig was going to give you the opp to play stuff you wouldn’t get to play. How do you put your stamp on it and make it suitable for the dancefloor?
'There’s been a lot of technical advances for how you mix music together, you can stick things together in a more seamless and eclectic way that you could do with just vinyls. Just talking about vinyls, I just Tweeted a picture of me holding a new vinyl I ordered. I probably just sound like a bit of hypocrite. But I’ve still got a lot of records and I record them into the computer and store them and they’ll either go into my Ableton section or they’ll go into my SD card depending on what I want to do with them. If I want to be really creative and experimental with a track or do something with a track that I wouldn’t easily be able to play or programme into a set… Ah wait, I’m getting attacked here, there is an evil baby crying right next to me. That’s what it’s like here.'

It’s the same story in Basingstoke. I’m from just round the corner from you.
'Ah, Amazingstoke. That’s my Geography teacher used to say, Mr Angel. He was from there. I don’t think I’ve ever been there, actually. I think I went there once to get the mini serviced.'

Everyone has a really crap Basingstoke story. Whenever I say I’m from there, people are like, Oh, I went past there on the train or, yeah it’s got loads of roundabouts.
'And an industrial park.'

Exactly. Southampton has, or had, a much better club scene than us though. Totally.
'Oh really?'

Basingstoke has a Lloyds Bar… That is all.
'We’ve got a Lloyds Bank!'

So, pre-baby screaming, you were talking about how you divide up your music.
'If there’s something I want to play that is quite difficult to play or something I’d like to re-edit live on the fly then I’ll chop it up and put it into Ableton to make different loops and add my own percussion to it and strip it down and put it back together live in a more dancefloor-friendly way. Or, if it’s just a great track as it is, then it will go straight onto my SD card. I play off CDJ 2000s now, which aren’t actually CDJs, you can play off a USB or SD card or straight from your laptop. They also double up as midi controllers so you can use them to control any DJ software. It’s kind of like CDs are old school already.'

Obviously you’re at the forefront of these technological movements in DJ software and you consult for a lot of companies – how does all of this affect the art of DJing?
'I really love mixing still. I really love physically beat-matching with my ears and not by pushing the sync button on Tractor. So I’ve kinda got one foot in the old school and one in the new school. I’m using my iPad over a wi-fi network to control stuff in Ableton one minute, and then I’m scratching and beat-matching in a more traditional way the next. I think there’s an element of performance there, which I think the audience would probably miss if I suddenly decided to go completely internal with the laptop. And it wouldn’t be as much fun. I actually used Tractor for 10 months and it’s not just for me. It’s just not as reliable, especially in a sweaty, hot sticky club. But I get really excited about the developments and I get really excited trying to incorporate them. Not only am I quite confused musically but I’m quite confused in the DJ booth with all the different equipment I use.'

Can you tell me a bit about using an iPad in your sets?
'I bought it butI felt guilty because it’s one of those of luxury items that you don’t need and no one needs if you’ve got a phone and a laptop. Well, I wanted one, but I felt bad about owning it. I couldn’t really find a use for it to be honest except, like, sofa-surfing. So there’s a little programme called Touch OSC, I think it’s a free application, and you can design your own controller with it. You can use Photoshop or one of those kind of things to draw what you want where, then you can send it to a Midi-translator and it makes it. You can download other people’s ones to use too. And then through a programme called Osculator, which is what I use, and then you can set up a wi-fi network where you can send midi data over it. I’ve been messing around with it and you can go a good 50m away from your computer and still DJ. This venue is quite small so you could probably leave the venue and DJ from outside. It’s pretty gnarley but it’s great fun because you can mess about with it, and change the layout of it and drawing silly things on there. After every gig I go back to the layout and add a knob here and tweak something there.'

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jasVTIHP4mA

Are there quite a lot of people using iPads in this way?
'I’ve seen Carl Craig do it at Space in Ibiza. Actually, going back to Ramadanman, Carl Craig, obviously a legendary techno DJ, has just edited Ramandanman’s new record, which is on Will Saul’s new label, who is also playing at the night. It’s obviously got his attention, this kind of music, if he’s making his own edit of that tune.'

He’s actually playing at Plastic People on the same night as Nite Sessions. It’s pretty amazing that you can see the likes of you, Will Saul and Carl Craig at different venues in one area on the same night in London.
'You wouldn’t get that in Basingstoke!'

No, definitely not. How do you strike a balance between being a masterful DJ technician and creating a great party?
'I struggled with that for a long time. When I get a new toy I have to use it to the maximum and for a while, I was probably not getting the balance between putting a great musical set together that’s going to work in the context of people going out and having fun and turning into a guy noodling in a DJ booth just pushing lots of buttons and being in his own little world. I think it’s really easy to go down that path but I’ve restrained my trigger fingers now and I’m always thinking in terms of those things. Obviously the music is the most important thing. You could be the worst technical DJ in the world but still play great music and everyone’s going to have a good time and they’re going to forgive you inability to mix in key. It is difficult. And it’s only something that I’ve improved on in the last couple of years or so. When it starts to take away from the music and becomes its own thing that’s a bit of a spectacle, it transcends the DJing and then becomes a show and it’s not something that I’m particularly interested in I suppose, at least not at the moment. Sometimes, if I’m honest with you, I just remember the times that I used to turn up with a box of records and mix them together and that was it. So there’s an element of simplicity that has been lost.'

Are you experimenting with anything new at the moment?
'Actually, yeah. I had the Pioneer guys from Japan down at my flat the night before last. One of the engineer’s names is Shogo, and he works on all the future products. I can’t actually talk about some of the things I’ve seen, it’s very cloak and dagger, but I’m still torn because I love all that technology and getting involved and I’m always looking for the next thing for my DJ sets but it’s just about being restrained with it I think and keeping a balance. But in the last few years the technological side of DJing has moved on massively. For 20 odd years people just played records. But now performers and DJs have so many different choices. But now what I’ve seen is that when you turn up to a gig, each different DJ has a different way of playing their set and different tools. I think that’s interesting because I’m always keen to see what they’re playing, but it’s interesting for the crowd too because it now gives younger artists the chance to be more individual – you’re not armed with the same tools as everyone else, you get to choose and design your own set-ups. If you want to show up with Nintendo Wi controllers and play your set over a wi-fi network, you can.'

What’s your Tokyo connection? Is that through Pioneer?
'Many years ago, I did a small little demo display at Pioneer’s trade show event in London and they’ve been sort of following me ever since. I suppose I did something thing with their CDJs and their FX unit that they weren’t really designed for. I’m sure most people are the same, but I never read the instruction manual with anything, I just plug it in and figure it out and see what it can do. So now they pick my brains on things. And that actually works, not just in my favour because I find stuff that I didn’t realise I could do on them and they’re like, yeah, it’s in the instruction book! So it can work both ways. I don’t just work with them, I’ve just got an all-round interest in DJ technology. I’ve done some testing for Native Instruments, I flirted with that for a little while but I decided it wasn’t for me, and then I’ve done a little bit of testing for Serato and Ableton; they’ve got this little bridge thing which is really great now and quite exciting, where you can DJ with Serato with records or CDs or whatever and you can fire off your Ableton clips in time; the two programmes are now linked together. It has just opened up another line of creativity for people that want it.'

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XE39A2hgZ64

You’ve mixed Mixmag’s next cover CD too, which I read was inspired by Tokyo too?
'It’s got all different recordings on it that I made during my time in Tokyo. Most people write a diary but I take a little recorder around with me and record everything. I’ve got hours and hours of probably what most people would think sounds like boring ambient noise! But when you go and do that in Tokyo, you get loads of different sounds – it’s like a sonic and visual explosion. And obviously there’s the technology thing there as well. I like it because it’s so hectic but it’s also very regimented and there’s a certain calmness when you’re there – you can be on rush hour on the tube where they’re stuffing people onto the train to the point when you don’t know whether you’ll make the journey alive but everyone’s so calm and falling asleep on each other, it’s mad!'

What’s the dance music scene like there?
'I’ve played at Womb – and a few others – which is massive. DJing there is a bit like a religious experience, or what I imagine it would be like. For a moment you forget what you’re doing and start looking at the lasers because the lighting guys over there are just incredible – they get their names on the flyers next to the DJs and rightly so, because they’re amazing. They’re a collector’s nation and that’s something that I identify with, collecting ‘Star Wars’ toys and stuff, but they’re also enthusiasts for music and it’s probably one of the only places in the world that shifts good quantities of vinyl. A lot of producers in the UK and Europe will sell the majority of their tracks in the record shops there. I still have that affinity with it: I’m not actually DJing with them and ruining them but I collect records and they’re still in their plastic sleeves and neatly filed in chronological order – nah, that’s not true, they’re all over the floor, but they haven’t got my fingerprints all over them or little drawings on them. “Massive hoover breakdown at three minutes” and “hectic rave synth at 2:66” – that’s the kind of note I’d write on the labels of my records to remind me what was on there because I had so many. But now of course, with the CDJ 2000s, you can upload all your notes from an SD card and it’ll come up on the screen in the player and you can put it all in iTunes.'

Did you get your record collecting instincts from your dad? I read he used to work in a record shop and got you into acid house?
'I know, it’s mad. He used to listen to the stuff I listen to now. I think it’s a punk rock thing, because he came out of that and then went straight into rave music. It’s a similar anti-establishment attitude, illegal-rave-in-a-field, that kind of vibe. But he soon discovered a love of hard techno, which I hated as a kid growing up, because I just wanted to listen to Nirvana. But I think everyone rebels against their parents, so I automatically hated that music as a 13-year-old boy. In 92, 93, he’d be going out to these strange places, tuning his radio in and turning up at some bar or some warehouse somewhere. I remember being at home on a Sunday and he’d be coming in from raving at 11 in the morning or later. He was pretty mad.'

But you haven’t adopted those same party instincts?
'No, I think it’s that childhood rebellion thing again. Both my parents are smokers and I don’t smoke. It’s just a deep psychological thing that’s built in, that you must not do what your parents so. I actively tried to stay away from acid house, but now I like it.'

Your nan also sounds very cool. I sound like your stalker now…
'My nan actually is my stalker! She is quite mad. She’s got a list that she gets my mum to make her of all my gigs that she writes up by hand and sticks on her kitchen wall. I think I might have to take a picture of it next time I go there. She’s amazing. They’re just so proud of me and every year when the DJ Magazine Top 100 DJs comes out, they get upset that I’m not number one. Super fan gran. She’s also a guerrilla knitter. Going back to when I was 9 or 10, she knitted me a ‘Dr Who’ jumper. I grew up watching ‘Dr Who’ so she knitted me Sylvester McCoy’s jumper with all the question marks on, it must have taken her ages. And she knitted me an 11ft Tom Baker scarf with different colours all away along it. I should probably enter her into some sort of competition. The craziest thing she’s every made me? She made me a tardis, a knitted tardis – a three-dimensional object with stuffing inside it and she also knitted my a Dalek, which sounds impossible but she did it. And just recently, I went round there and she had knitted me the same Sylvestor McCoy jumper in my size now. I did have an idea of having a Halloween party one year and I could go as all of the Doctors and wear one item of clothing from each Doctor that she’s already knitted me.'

That would be awesome! So, tell us about who you’ve got playing at Nite Sessions.
'Midland did this really cool mix for FACT so I’ve had that going around on my iPod, listening to it on the train, and that’s how he’s ended up on the bill. I don’t know what to play on the night but his mix is definitely eclectic: it starts off with Boards of Canada and goes through Massive Attack and then a selection of deep and tech-house stuff. It’s just stuff that I enjoy listening to so it will be interesting to see what he’ll play.'

How do you think that will transfer to the dancefloor?
'It’s a small venue so you can get away with doing so much more. Without doing your own edit, if you just want to play 90bpm Boards of Canada mood weirdness at a festival in front of 8,000 people, they’re all just going to stand there and look at you. But playing in a small venue gives you more creative freedom to noodle about a bit. And also, when it’s for a specific party, for those artists, people will come and they’ll want that, they’ll want some kind of experimentation and they’re coming there to listen to Midland or whoever specifically, not just to hear the headline DJ bosh out the biggest tracks from Beatport that week. It’s exciting to have him on there, for sure.'

What about Will Saul? He’s been around for quite a while.
'He has. I’ve been looking to Will a lot in the last few months or so because I’ve been thinking about starting up a record label and I really love what he’s done with his labels Aus and Simple. He’s got that Carl Craig edit of Ramadanman [WHAT IS IT?] and that’s amazing. I don’t know how he engineered that to happen, but I really respect him for being able to be able to keep up a pretty decent DJ career and run an amazing record label. It’s something that I look up to him for. And I’ve been looking at what he’s been doing a lot more closely, especially recently, because I’d like to do a similar thing myself. But I’m just not a very organised person. I believe he used to work at Sony so he comes out of working at a label and he has that advantage, he knows what he’s doing a little bit, but next year, that’s something I’d like to do.'

Do you have an idea of what you’re going to do yet?
'Not really. I haven’t even got a name or anything yet. I’ve started working on some music for it…but I’ll figure it out. I’ll be releasing my own stuff on it and do it, you know, exactly how Will’s done it. He probably thought, this Ramadanman is great, I’ll release some of his music. It’s not just going to have my own tracks but a lot of artists that I respect and look up to as well. I’m not going to have any boundaries for it genre-wise, so if I want to release some krautrock ambient noodle-tech I can do that – I just made that up! – or if I want to release something for the dancefloor then I can do that as well. That’s the only thing I know about the label so far, is that it’s going to have no boundaries. And I really love how Will has blurred those lines between techno and dubstep and is releasing great, interesting music.'

So, what have you been up to this year? It’s been a while since you’ve played in London.
'It’s been mental because I’ve just been touring. It’s been quiet on the production side of things because there’s just no time to do anything else except touring. I did a small thing at Plan B for SW4, but it was just a little after-party and everyone was absolutely hammered. It was really, really messy. I DJ’d to the most sloshed crowd ever. But that was cool because I had my friend Tom Budden DJ’ing, who is also playing at Nite Sessions, and a guy called Mouij, who is going to be helping me with the label next year, Reset Robot, who are from Portsmouth down the road from me. Technically I should hate him because I’m from Southampton and he should hate me. We’re not allowed to be friends; that’s how it works.'

How do you feel about Basingstokers then?!
'You’re at a safe distance so we’re not threatened by you! You’ve got your roundabouts, and we’ve got our traffic lights. Did you know that there’s more traffic lights in Southampton then there is in any city in the whole of Europe? We’ve got the most traffic lights. Here. It is ridiculous! The council just think, oh, we need something to spend money on, let’s spend it on traffic lights.

What’s life like on the road for you?
'I’ve got used to it now, but the travelling part is the worst part of DJ’ing. The rest of it is great, but that’s the worst part. I think, after a while, you’re just in a bubble. The headphones go on and the blank expression comes over my face and I just sort of go on autopilot around the airport or on the train, wrapped up in my hoody. That’s the only way to do it.'

You’re about to go on tour again – and you seem to play in a really bizarre assortment of places.
'I go all over the place. There are still some places I haven’t been to – I haven’t been to India. I’m been to some really bizarre places but not been to some more obvious places, it’s weird. I actually find some of the strange places that you wouldn’t expect to have a big scene are often the best because I don’t suppose they’ve got a big club night happening there that often. So when you go there it’s a speciality and people are more appreciative. The best party I did this year was in Beirut in Lebanon. I played there on my birthday and there were 8,000 people going bananas and I just didn’t expect it at all. I suppose it’s a country that’s had a very erratic history, politically, and I guess that reflects on its people because they just want to go out and forget about all the crap that they have to deal with in their day-to-day life. It was such an amazing party: there was lot of enthusiasm from the crowd, lots of lovely messages, I still get messages all the time about that party. It was easily the best birthday I’ve ever had. That kind of thing happens a lot: look at Exit Festival in Serbia, that’s a country that came outn of communism, out of a regime, and now they put this amazing hectic party on ever year and the people are just properly into it. I played at those same castle grounds where they hold Exit, I just did a gig there on my own, and it was raining and no one left, they were just like, so what. I can imagine that that’s sort of how what it was like in the UK in the early ’90s, where people were so excited by dance music. But things go in and out of fashion and you can play somewhere one minute and it’s cool and the next minute it’s a dirty word. Which is why I try to stay away from pigeonholes and getting sucked in to one genre.'

Like breakbeat?
'Yeah, totally. And even progressive house: that’s been a dirty word for a long time. But, for me, I just don’t think like that at all. I find it hard to even get in that mindset. For me, there’s just good music and bad music, I either like it or I don’t. If it’s a progressive record or if it’s a dubstep record, it makes no difference to me.'

What’s next?
'Well, I suppose I better think of a name for this label and start moving on that because I’d like to come out with it at Winter Music Conference or around that time. Or at least have a plan ready to go for that. I should get my nan to knit all the record sleeves, that would be quite cool. And then I’ve got some time off to work on music of my own. I’m just going to go in the studio and mess about. Because of my huge touring schedule, there’s just no time for me to have the energy to make any music. I don’t want to go into the bat cave, or the ‘bat loft’ as it is in my apartment at the moment. I just come home and want to sit on the couch and watch ‘Eastenders’! So I want to make music, whether that’s music that’s going to be on my label or music that’s going to go on an eventual artist album which I’ve been threatening for a long time now, I don’t know.'

An artist album isn’t at the top of your agenda?
'I mean, it should be. Yeah, it is. I’m taking some time off to specifically make music and I’m going to sneak some snowboarding in as well.'

Are you a fan of Snowbombing?
'Ah, yeah. I love Snowbombing, it’s so cool. Everyone goes on about Winter Music Conference, but Snowbombing is the week after so you don’t often get people doing both. WMC is a weeklong party and is the furthest thing you can think of from doing snow stuff up a mountain with a sheet of Perspex attached to your feet. But I love it: I would happily not bother with WMC but it’s a necessity, unfortunately. I get really depressed at these things, but maybe it’s an ego thing, I just feel so small. Everyone is vying for attention and it’s definitely a small part of my motivation, speaking honestly, to do this label. Like Ovum Records did an amazing party with Drumcode that I went to, and it was incredible and I’m there wishing that I could have done something of my own. ADE and these things are great but they’re sort of machines where DJs, labels and everyone goes to to whore themselves around. And the nicest part about it for me is just to see people that I meet and see around the world in one place who I don’t normally get to hang out with. So that’s the good part. But I get really depressed at these things, it’s too much competition. WMC have asked me a few times to be on panels and do speeches and things but I’m not the best person to be doing speeches, that’s for sure.'

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TdA93PBKhnE&feature=related

You should just start your own in Southampton.
'Actually, we’ve got so many producers and stuff down here and in this area, we could probably do something pretty cool. We’ve got Reset Robot, we’ve got Alan Fitzpatrick, who lives around the corner from me and he played at the Drumcode night at ADE, he’s playing all the time and has a lot of gigs in Germany. We’ve got Tom Budden, who lives around the corner as well. There’s a couple more commercial guys, DJ Ridme/RYdney, who is a million miles away from what I’m into, but he’s a success nevertheless and has just done a remix for David Guetta. There are a couple of young guys that I want to sign to the label too. My ex girlfriend was a teacher and one of them was on a music tech course there and she gave me some demos that she got hold of and we’ve been friends since then. He makes some really wicked downtempo electronica that’s really interesting and him and his friends have got this band with almost an album’s worth of material now. So if I get this label up-and-running, I’d like to help them by putting out their music. It would be a nice vehicle for my friend’s unsigned tracks. I’ve got a friend I went to school with – Herman/Erman, his name is – and he makes some twisted, weird, very trippy dubsteppy stuff and he’s got a computer full to the brim with music that he’s made, all of unsigned material. So that’s another motivation for me to do this.'

Should nu-disco be filed under so last year? Well, judging by the biggest dance track to turn up the heat this summer, it’s not ready for the bargain racks just yet.

For anyone who hasn’t turned their ears onto Tensnake yet, the Hamburg-based producer has cooked up a deliciously infectious slice of nu-disco, ‘Coma Cat’ (the track in question, natch), which was rereleased on big-gun house label Defected in June. Consequently, its uplifting vocals, ’90s piano-house stabs and groovesome synths have been whirled around the decks, Piña Colada in hand, everywhere from Miami to Ibiza.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R7KEve9Eqew

It has had an especially shimmering effect in London, though, where you are likely to hear it, not just on Radio 1’s C-list, but from disco pubs to dubstep sweatdowns. The sound doesn’t have a ‘scene’ as such, but disparate producers Aeroplane, who is playing at Annie Mac Presents at Koko this Saturday, and even the cosmic Scandinavians like Prins Thomas and Todd Terje (who incidentally is at Plan B on Saturday too), are close sonic cousins.

You’ve heard the tune. Now meet the man behind it after the jump (you can also meet him in next week's Time Out, but this is a longer version of the interview). And quite a dashing one he is too…

Tensnake Interview

What are you up to today?
"I’ve just been outside, enjoying the day, but, unfortunately, it’s not yet a typical day for me. I hope it will be soon! I’m usually just sitting in the studio in my flat from early in the morning and working on remixes and productions. I’m searching for a new place, but it’s quite difficult here in Hamburg as there’s rarely any space for creative work, it’s really expensive. I thought about moving to east London, I really like it there, but it’s very expensive too."

Does Hamburg have a healthy club scene?
"Yeah, it does. Compared to the last two years, the club sound has changed from colder minimal sounds to house and disco-influenced stuff, but it’s more about techno. But we don’t have that many clubs here – maybe just two good clubs that you can go to."

So Hamburg hasn’t experienced a proper disco renaissance yet?
"Not that much, no. Friends of mine are running a party here called I Feel This and they’ve booked people like Maurice Fulton, Prins Thomas and Todd Terje, all the great guys that I love to see and I love the dance to, but sometimes there were only 50 people showing up. Hamburg isn’t the best place for the disco sound."

Where is, then?
"Probably in heaven!"

How do you feel about being called a nu-disco producer?
"I’m fine with that, but I don’t see myself as ‘nu-disco’, that’s much too narrow-minded. I don’t think that I’m doing something particularly new. I’ve been doing this for myself for quite a while and I can’t see why this is something extraordinary."

People do seem to find ‘Coma Cat’ extraordinary, though. Why is that?
"I don’t know. It’s kind of scary sometimes. Probably because it has a great crossover potential somehow. As well as the fact that it sounds kind of ’90s and people are over with all the of the ’80s stuff and now they are moving on. It’s just a happy song."
What goes into making the ultimate dancefloor anthem?
"If I knew the answer to that, I would only produce ultimate dancefloor anthems! But I think there must be something in it so that when they go home and think about the whole evening, that there’s something they can remember. I would say feelgood and happy is better than a dark track that brings you down – at least, for a summer track, that’s really important."

What inspired the track?
"'Coma Cat' is part of a whole EP that came out early this year and the idea behind that was to recreate a sound that reminded me of my childhood, when I started listening the boogie and disco tracks that my older brother was playing in his room next door to mine. I started working on it last year when I had come back from holiday in Miami and I was really relaxed and wanted to capture the feeling of the holiday and bring it to the next year."
I read that you used to be a bit of a goth?
"I wouldn’t say goth! I was listening to indie music, stuff like Sisters of Mercy and Pixies, but I wasn’t walking around like a goth."

I had a mental image of you in white facepaint and a black wig.
"Ja, no, I didn’t. But I’ll think about that for the next photo session!"

Do you think nu-disco is over?
"Yeah, I do. I don’t even know what the term means. I’m not quite sure if there’s a scene – at least I don’t feel like I’m part of any scene – but I’ve been into this sound for quite a while and I’m feeling kind of bored at the moment. It’s not over, because it will never be over for me, but I’ll be happy when the big hype is over. I think I might maybe move away from the four-to-the-floor beat a little bit and be more experimental – I’m really enjoying some dubstep and broken beat tracks, like the Mount Kimbie album, at the moment."

You’ve been working for a DJ and producer for 10 years – why has it taken you that long to break through?
"Before, I was doing remixes as a service for major companies and not under a name, but I started producing under the name Tensnake in 2005. That was when I realised that out there in the world, people are digging disco more. I was listening to Tim Sweeney’s Beats in Space radio show and, ja, I was a big fan of all the Scandinavian guys like Prins Thomas, Lindstrom, Todd Terje. I became really motivated and I decided to start my own label [Mirau]."

Are things getting quite serious now? You look quite serious in your new photo…
"Yes. Really serious. [laughs]. It’s getting a little bit more hectic to be honest, but I’m trying to relax."

And with your label too?
"The sales are going up a little bit, but still the label is just not for making money, it’s just a playground for releasing quality music. We are really lazy – I think we’ve only done 10 or so releases on five years!"

You’ve done loads of remixes – which one would you particularly recommend?
"I still really like my first one for the Junior Boys. When I listen to it, I don’t get bored, which happens to me with most of my tracks. I did that really early on, in 2006 maybe, right after my first release. They heard the record somewhere and they contacted me. They were, like, fans and I think was just running around my flat when I got the email for hours and hours screaming 'The Junior Boys!'."

You’ve just remixed the Scissor Sisters too. What do you like about them?
"I have to say, I don’ t know that much about them. But I shouldn’t say that. Erm, what I like about them is: I like the track, I think the production was really nice and I think it’s just great pop music and they don’t have a too-serious approach. It’s about entertainment. They’re just a good pop band."

And you’ve remixed Goldfrapp – do you have a thing for disco divas?
"I think that just happened accidentally, but I wouldn’t say I’m very passionate about disco divas. I like them, they are strong women, and there has always been a connection between disco and strong, powerful women, but I’m into so much stuff, I’m not only into them."

Is ‘Coma Cat’ a pop track?
"It’s on the border. It has a big pop influence because there’s a catchy melody and it’s really happy and has delighted sounds in there, but I think it’s both: it’s club music and pop music."

Is making pop music your end goal?
"Yeah. For me, the most exciting and everlasting music is pop. I’m a massive fan of Prefab Sprout, which is really soft and perhaps other people would say cheesy. But it’s just the perfect pop music. You could listen to it and play it in 100 years and it will still sound, maybe not fresh, but not dated, and will move you for sure. The ultimate pop music – a great song with good songwriting, great instrument and really well-produced – is timeless. It would be nice to produce something that will last when I’m not here anymore. Maybe I’m trying to produce something that I can leave behind."

Isn’t that a bit dark?
"Is it? I don’t know? Well, we talked about the goth thing before, so perhaps that’s influenced me. I’ve been listening to too much Sisters of Mercy."

Do you have any plans to produce anyone else?
"I would love to, maybe next year, but first I need a new studio because I don’t want to have to clean up my flat every time someone comes over and hide all my dirty underwear."

Who would you like to work with?
"That’s really difficult. I’ve just finished a remix for Aloe Blacc’s ‘I Need a Dollar’, who has released on Stones Throw in the States. He’s an amazing artist. And I think for my album, which will be finished sometime next year, I would really just like to work with some vocal artists. There are so many great people, but they are all dead already, that’s the problem! I’m a huge Arthur Russell fan and, if I could turn back time, I would love to work with Larry Levan in the studio, or Marvin Gaye."

Is there anything else that people get wrong about you? Apart from that you’re a goth?
"So far, I’m not feeling misunderstood, I’m just really happy. But maybe it’s about my name, Tensnake… People wonder where it comes from and unfortunately there’s no story behind it. But a few people, especially in the UK, have thought my name was 'Trousersnake'."

You can read more in my launch party preview in this week's Time Out, which talks about this vivid representation of London's DIY style tribes. I've got loads of opinions in there and stuff. But this second, I am hungover, and don't have the brain capacity to write any more about how it's quite depressing that this recent scene of creative nightlife creatures ovah already.

Anyway, for pon da blog, I also interviewed curator Antony Price, a research lecturer at the London College of Fashhion, and you can read his exceedingly detailed explanation of the show after the jump.

Interview with Antony Price

The exhibition defines an era of clubbing that, as you put it, "captured a generation of clubbers who embraced the rapidly expanding world of digital technology and social networking and emerged as a hybrid mix ’n’ match style tribe, both in terms of music, fashion and cultural beliefs". Does this era of clubbing still exist, or is it over now?

"Yes, I certainly would say that it does still exist, however, in a much more aware, less edgy format. Many club nights use blogging, social networking and digital technology as their primary way to promote, document and disseminate there ideas. When social networking first started with Myspace and then Facebook, the people using it weren’t necessarily aware of how important or how all-consuming it would become. Young people just starting out in clubland had a brand new platform to easily share information and images. They started to promote themselves and their creativity without the need for an external PR or promoter in a truly underground, viral way.

"As digital technology and social networks have become commonplace, big brands and mainstream institutions have caught up and latched on to these new channels to access and communicate with a younger audience. Equally, club nights that started out as small, unique places have become brands themselves. So, in a way that era of clubbing is over, as it’s no longer something new and fresh: it is now a business which is targeted and well thought through.

"However, the current generation know no different: they have grown up tagging, sharing, linking and blogging. They understand the power of social networking and self-promotion and have seen it used effectively by the generation above to gain notoriety. In an era of ‘me, me, me’ marketing many of the fashion club kids of the last ten years have done very well for themselves by simply understanding the power of self-promotion and creative networking. Users are now far more savvy and almost blasé about their networks; we ignore most of the multitude of events we are invited to, we gloss over the number of friend requests we get, targeting only those we feel may be useful.

"It will be extremely interesting to see what effect this will have on our culture in years to come. As the CEO of Google states, "I don't believe society understands what happens when everything is available, knowable and recorded by everyone all the time," warning that many will come to regret past indiscretions posted online. Perhaps this serves as a warning for just how much we choose to expose ourselves on the web, ushering in a new era of austerity and a considered awareness of online presence, not just in nightlife, but everywhere."

"The club nights that Noughtie Nightlife focuses on were and are important in many ways to London’s nightlife and fashion scenes. They were places where different tribes came together – from art, fashion and music students, to the weird and wonderful dress-up kids, to the outcasts and the in-crowd – all in one place to meet, talk, network, dance and be creative and extravagant in what they wore, without the parameters of ‘normal’ club nights. While the big boys focus on music and branding to the mainstream clubber, nights like Trash, Kash Point, All You Can Eat and Anti-Social pushed a very different type of ethos, appealing to those who never felt comfortable in big clubs listening to mainstream ‘dance’ music.

"Although the music itself was central to the success of these nights, it wasn’t necessarily the main focus. Mad mash-ups of disparate sounds clashed together. Indie versus hip hop, electroclash and grime, techno with classic ’80s sounds all fused together – and not always in a perfect mix like the superstar DJs were doing. Ipod shuffle nights, your mate who just wants a go, one-off performance art and new unsigned bands were showcased and pushed the boundaries of what people expected from a night out, no holds barred and experimental in nature.

"They were rebellious and rallied against the 'norm' and the mainstream. Because of this, it spawned many of the big names in music, fashion and performance such as Erol Alkan, The Klaxons, Bloc Party, M.I.A., Gareth Pugh, Carri Cassette Playa, Namalee Bolle, Jodie Harsh and Scottee. They were all integral to the scene and many have crossed over to become big players in popular culture. The clubs also represented a wide spectrum of youth tribes of a wide ethnic, social and sexual orientation mix. They gave a home to London’s unusual and outlandish characters who simply wouldn’t fit into the general club scene. As with Blitz and Taboo in the ’80s, London’s fashion-orientated clubs of the noughties have given rise to a unique mix of hedonistic, extravagant and hybrid clubbers, who have used social networking and digital technology to spread the word and invite a multitude of new followers. From glamourous to grotty, the noughties were about blending the past and mixing and matching to suit your mood as well as express your personality."

Why is photography so integral to clubbing these days?

"Photography is a brilliant way of showing yourself and your creation or character to a mass audience. Where you were, who you were with and what you were wearing can be uploaded or downloaded, tagged and spread the very next day. Having your photo taken by the right photographer and at the right club can push you into a network, get you noticed and propel you up the club kid social ladder. An image can show you at your best and at your worst, but whichever, it’s often better to be seen than not to be noticed at all. Club kids of the noughties realised this power and used it to their advantage. Your photo appearing on Mega Mega Mega, We Know What You Did Last Night or Dirty Dirty Dancing was a badge of honour, a tip of the hat to your friends. Many club kids went just to be photographed, often leaving after they'd been snapped to go somewhere else. In a celebrity-fuelled ‘I want it all now’ culture, the image that you portray and sculpt is paramount to how you are seen online. That character you create is how you are viewed by your peers and by those you seek to impress. You may be a student, an artist or an accountant, but at the weekend, and on your Myspace or Facebook page, you can be a superstar.

"Many of the photographers involved in this exhibition have gone on to work in the fashion and music industries which shows the importance and power of nightlife photography. What may have started as a simple passion to document fun nights out became a career. Billa Baldwin shoots for Super Super magazine and backstage at London Fashion Week. Matthew Brindle of Mega Mega Mega is currently the photographer on 'Britain’s Next Top Model'. Rory DCS and Ellis Scott are up coming fashion photographers shooting editorial and advertising campaigns. Christopher James is sculpting his We Know What You Did Last Night website into a multi functional brand.

"From an educational and cultural perspective, archiving these images is incredibly important. Many of the images that will be displayed only exist in the ether of the internet. They have no physical home and are subject to server storage limits and could be deleted and lost so easily. As Youth culture is so multi-faceted with many disparate tribes appearing and disappearing so frequently, it’s crucial to record them as they happen. The medium of photography itself has become a beast to be reckoned with due to the advances of digital technology over the last ten years. Everyone and anyone can capture events as they unfold. This exhibition is a vehicle to capture, archive and critique the movements, the characters, the styles and the crazy antics that make the noughties unique."

He may look like your Bacardi Breezer-swilling 15-year-old bruv, but this is actually Geeneus, one of the firebrands behind legendary (and bloody brilliant) London underground radio station Rinse FM.

I don't know why I've got into the habit of interviewing sullen dance music nerdos lately, but there you have it. Maybe it's their musk.

Anyway, I talked to Geeneus about Rinse getting a legitimate broadcasting licence ahead of their 16th birthday, which they'll be celebrating in typically epic style at Fabric next Friday with a huge selection of show hosts and regular guests.

Read the feature in next week's Time Out. But for now, here's the interview in all it's full (yawn) glory.

Geeneus interview

Hello Geeneus. Congratulations on getting your official licence. What's the update?
'We’ve got the licence and we’re in the process of sorting out technical stuff to switch on. I think it’s going to happen in the next four to five weeks. Quite soon!'

Why has it taken such a long time to get one?
'It took us around five years to get the licence. It’s just the process. The first process was us asking, “Can we get a licence?” and them [Ofcom] saying no, and then us working a way around it. It took just over four years to get to the stage of them even letting us apply. It would take about three hours to tell you the process we went through.'

Why did they make it so difficult?
'It’s standard protocol. You ask a question and there’s an automatic answer that they’re meant to give. There’s not a thought process in it, it’s just what the systems tell ’em to do. So I think we had to shake up the system a bit.'

What does the future hold for the station? Is anything going to change?
'With regards to the programming an’ that, no. Hopefully, the only thing that will change is the DJs will now be on time. We’ve spent 16 years making the station: I’m not about to change it. The point of us getting a licence was so that we could be legal, not be something we ain’t. A lot of people ask me, "Ah you’re gonna be changing, you’re gonna be playing news" – and I say, "We’re gonna be playing no news! I don’t care about nufin’ like that. I don’t care about the weather: it’s is what it is." We’ll have adverts – we have them now – but we’re not going to be selling people car insurance or nufin’. It’ll be relevant. And there won’t be adverts during the sets neither – I’ll still let DJs have a two-hour show and then play the adverts when they finish.'

Have you got any new presenters lined up?
'Not really. Like I say, I’ve actually got everything I wanted and I’m really really fussy and always want to find something new. A lot of DJs and people have come from big radio stations, or people who were on big radio stations in the past, and thought that [us getting an official licence] is another opportunity for them, but it’s not. It’s more of an opportunity for someone new, not someone who has already been and done it. That’s not for me, thanks: we’re full up!'

How long is your waiting list?
There’s normally around a year waiting list for a permanent show with about 80 people on it, but it’s been like that for the past 10 years.

Notably your station is male-dominated. Is there space for female DJs too?
'We’ve got two, I think [Flight and Jay Diamond]. But the thing is, I don’t care about girls or boys. I don’t give preference on gender, it just depends on whether they’re a good DJ or not.'

What advice would you give to budding DJs?
'Do what they think is right and try and get through with it and if you’re not very good, try and realise at an early point in your life.'

Charming. Do you have a permanent home now?
'Yeah, we’re based in east London and we’re hoping to stay where we are – we’ve been in the new place for about eight months.'

What’s the most interesting place you’ve broadcasted from?
'Probably in Slimzee’s mum’s house in his bedroom. He was one of the founders of the station. His parents didn’t know what was going on so we used to have to sneak the DJs past his mum and dad while they was in the front room and pretend it was just mates coming round. We rolled that one out for about four months. But they were cool with it; they knew that we loved doing it so they kind of supported it – when they realised that we weren’t going to give up anyway!'

Were you ever concerned that getting a legal licence would affect your credibility?
'Nah. I don’t see it as a big-massive thing. It’s just that now I don’t have to keep running away from someone and we can actually talk about our station like it’s a good thing. Some people’s perception is that it’s illegal so it’s bad and that is what we wanted to get rid of. I’ve been on the run from it for, like, 16 years and a few of our engineers an’ that have been ducking and diving and it’s just like, give us a break, we just wanna play music. Do ya know what I mean?'

How many people signed your petition?
'I didn’t even look. I saw the first batch and it was quite a lot and I was, like, "Wow", so after that I didn’t have a look. I really have no idea.'

When did you realised that Rinse had the potential to get so big?
'When Sarah Lockhart said to me, Rinse is actually bigger than you realise, and she said that she thought we could get a licence. Up until then we’d just switch on the station, play music, and I wouldn’t listen to a thing the outside world says. I didn’t used to speak to any kind of press, I just used to speak to the people on the station and that was that. I didn’t pay any attention to the world.'

Why has Rinse kept on going where so many pirate stations have only lasted a few years?
'Because I’m like a psychopath and I just won’t stop! I’ve got this thing in me where I just can’t give up and I can’t lose so I’ll keep going. I like new things otherwise I get bored very quickly, so I’m always searching for something new, whether it’s music, technology or anything else. I think that me and some of the people around me had the mentality of the younger generation early, so everything moves a lot quicker these days, but we felt like that before. But the other thing is that we keep refreshing the station every second, so instead of playing a specific type of music and then that grows and get old and we get old. There’s a DJ called A-Plus, who has been there since the first day we switched on, he had a little break in-between, and he’s the longest-running DJs apart from me, and then there’s Newham Generals, who have been on the second longest. But apart from that we keep changing the DJs an’ that all the time so it’s always current, so that just keeps it going for a long time.'

Has Rinse always been such a tightly run ship?
'I don’t know what a tightly run ship is, but what I can tell you is that when people come into our organisation and look at it they think it’s complete madness. But for me, it’s fine. People think it’s a tightly run ship and it does have some kind of structure, but we just freestyle and do what we like.'

What are your most memorable moments of the last 16 years?
'I have so many, but I am actually going to sit down with someone and they’re going to write it all out for me and I’ll explain it all. I’m going to do a little book on Rinse and all of its history and what it took to do and all of that. We’re just working it out now. It’s going to be a really long process but I have to sit down and get all the memories out. Then you can read the whole lot of it.'

Oh, right. Thanks… You must have one that you can tell me?
'I could tell you a story and you’d probably be on the floor laughing after one of them but it would take longer than I’ve got today. Off the top of my head, there’s a Wiley one where we’re doing the radio station in his bedroom and his dad was away and we ran out of electricity. So I wired up the electricity – illegally – bypassed the whole thing and got it working. Then Wiley went out on a motorbike and got arrested and the police brung ’im home and brung ’im into the bedroom where we was all DJing illegal radio and then police didn’t realise what was going on. They was moving some stuff around and it was going ‘KSSSSH’ and we were like “Yeah, that’s just the aerial” so they put it back all neat and tidy for us and everything. And then they looked in the cupboard and Wiley got arrested because I’d wired up his whole house. That was dodgy…'

When you started, you were more MC-based, right?
'When we started we were more focused on the MCs. We had 40-odd MCs and 10 DJs in the first days: that was the balance. It was just madness. There was some shows that would have 10 MCs chatting on it and one DJ. Target used to be the worst for it. It stayed like that for years and me personally, I like MCs quite a lot, so I’ve always been keen to get more in there. But, saying that, they’re the hardest people to control and it can get out of hand sometimes. Everyone else thought it was a disaster – jungle din’t like it; garage din’t like it – but we din’t care, we just do whatever. We liked it and we was kids so we just carried on with it.'

Like when Wiley started dissing an MC on air and then said MC came to the Rinse headquarters to start a fight with him?
'Yeah!'

Why is Rinse the most important radio station at the moment?
'I think because we try hard to keep bringing in something new. The world is based on moving forward and new things coming around and that’s what our human tendencies are like. Musically, we push that side of it a lot. With everything in life, people always ‘want’. They want something new – and that’s what we supply. We care about British underground music. We care about music that we can actually make: that is the point of it. We listen to music, we make it and we can turn it around quite quickly to play on the radio.'

How did Rinse become such an important cultural indicator?
'I don’t know how to answer that!'

Did going online have a lot to do with it?
'I think what the internet done for us is brung everything more local. The thing that we represent, the young thing, the new music thing, got branched out to other places and it connected with a lot of people and it kind of give us more of a ‘local’ feeling. So, at first were were based in east London and we felt like we represented in east London; then we represented the whole of London; now it’s like we represent a bigger thing. The whole music scene.'

Out of all the genres that you’ve supported, which has been the most important?
'They’ve all been important. They’re all one scene, it just keeps transforming and mutating. It’s like garage turning into grime, which also turned into dubstep, then turned into house and funky. It’s all from the same train of music. It’s part of something called the ‘hardcore continuum’ [which is much theorised by music journalist Simon Reynolds], I’ve read about it. The ongoing underground scene keeps moving and the names keep getting changed but it’s all the same thing over and over.'

What would have happened to dubstep and grime without Rinse?
'I think they would have existed. Rinse participated in getting it off the ground at an early stage. Rinse is just an empty thing, really: it gives everyone the ability to play the music to people.'

Why are the Rinse parties an important part of the station?
'It gives the public a place where they can connect more with the radio and feel it and see it. And it also gives those on the station a chance to show off and have face to face time with the people. FWD>> and Rinse come from the same angle – we own FWD>> – but FWD>> is weekly and small and underground and Rinse and FWD>> together is a much bigger thing. It is everything.'

What new sounds are exciting you right now?
'I’d say house. We’ve got an event called Yellow – that is the type of scene that I find interesting right now, but it’s quite small and it’s quite hard to say exactly what it is. Kismet, A-Plus, dem ones, they’re quite interesting.'

Drum ’n’ bass's brightest spark, Sub Focus, headlined Time Out Live's latest Nite Sessions club night at East Village last Friday. Needless to say, he tore the Shoreditch club a new earhole – albeit a very blokey, very bolshy earhole.

Since Ram Records boss Andy C tracked him down after being handed a demo tape with a phone number etched badly into the side, 27-year-old London native Sub Focus (né Nick Douwma) has trembled the Top 40 via solo work and productions for new pop talent, released a debut album last year to critical acclaim and headlined some of London’s biggest sell-out bashes with his epic sounding eclectic drum ’n’ bass hybrids. To top it all, he’s playing an incredibly intimate set at our next Nite Sessions club night at East Village on Friday with Burns, Emalkay and special guests, just before he jets off to the White Isle to close the Ibiza Rocks season.

But that’s not before he tells us about pouring wine over Goldie, what it's like to be part of the Ram Records family and, erm, making music with (whisper it) Sting’s offspring.

I interviewed him ahead of his set, a shorter version of which appeared in Issue 2089 of Time Out. Read on, you may as well, he's an alright chap n' all.

Interview with Sub Focus

Hello Sub Focus. What has life been like since you released your debut album?
‘Things have gone into overdrive! I’ve been touring a lot and helping with productions for other artists, like Example’s latest single, ‘Kickstarts’. I’ve also been working on a live show with an audiovisual element, a bit like Daft Punk and Deadmau5. I wanted to do it on a computer rather than get a band to play so I’ve been using a motion sensor, which is linked up to different synthesisers. I can just move my hands in the air to control the show. I don’t know if you remember Jean-Michel Jarre, a [French] composer, but he used to have a laser harp, which he controlled with his hands, and I’m quite keen to explore performing like that in a futuristic way.’

Can we expect any space-age outfits too?
‘I was looking at another controller that’s like a glove and you use it by opening and closing your fist, but at the moment I’m not wearing anything ‘spacey’ – pretty much just my normal clothes. But I was on tour with Pendulum recently and they’ve got this roadie that travels with them. He’s a real character, and he had these incredible light-up glasses, so I thought it would be amazing to have a pair of Wayfarers that light up in different colours – that would be incredible.’

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k_jOkWf1lRg

You must have some crazy tour stories. I read that you once poured wine into Goldie’s pocket for a joke?
‘That was quite amusing! It was the first time I’d ever met him and we were touring Australia together. He was pouring vodka into people’s pockets, so I poured vodka into his pocket. Then he took it upon himself to pour orange juice into mine, which had my wages in it for the entire tour. Luckily, money’s made of plastic in Australia, so it was fine in the end. There’s a fair few stories like that…’

How has your sound changed since you signed to Ram?
‘It’s great working with [the Ram Records] guys, but more recently I’ve tried to show people that I’m not just all about D&B. I find D&B purism quite uninspiring. If you look on the Internet and on forums and took all the criticism to heart then you’d probably just make tunes that sound like they were made in 1997, because a lot of those D&B listeners are quite conservative. I’m really enjoying the new, more ‘eclectic sound’, because [it allows me to] play all kinds of stuff like house, dubstep and drum ’n’ bass. For me, though, it’s all one thing: it’s all dance music united by basslines. Before my album I felt a little bit wary of making other sorts of stuff because I wasn’t sure what my fans would think of it and a lot of producers worry about branching out and away from their underground credentials, but it’s really important to keep pushing to do something different so that things move forward.’

At the core of it all, though, you have this huge, stadium-filling sound.
‘Yeah, it felt like, back in 2005, guys like me and Pendulum really started a sound that very big and ‘in yer face’ and it had a certain crossover with the rock stuff as well. The first music I was into was rock and I played bass in a band, so I got into dance music through some of the acts that breached that gap, like Chemical Brothers and Prodigy. Pendulum are very much like that now – I think they’re a reason why a lot of people are into dance music, who were into rock music before.’

How have you seen the D&B scene develop over the past five years?
‘It has definitely gained a new popularity, which is [down to] the strength and depth of producers. Pendulum really helped to raise the bar and now D&B music stands up to the production standards of pop music. When I first started listening to drum ’n’ bass, it seemed very closed off, but now it has really opened up in terms of artists from other countries becoming popular and in terms of being able to really break into the DJ game by writing good music. There’s a lot of strong artists out there now whereas before there would only be a few artists, like Roni Size or Ed Rush and Optical, who carried the scene a bit. I certainly think that Radio 1 supporting D&B a lot has really helped to bring it forward. It feels less like something that’s unknown and underground now. D&B has been around for so long that people have grown up with it and it’s no longer considered ‘strange’ music.’

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mzKSdi5ZUsQ

What was it like working with Coco Sumner on your new single, ‘Splash’?
‘It was good. I really like her voice. In my experience, a lot of singers sound quite generic, but she’s got a real sense of individuality. Her label approached me to do a remix of one of her tracks, but I was also into her voice so I approached her to see if she wanted to collaborate on a song. It was good too because it came together quickly. If you’re working on something together that takes ages it’s almost like you’re trying to force it, but we wrote the vocals and recorded it within a week. She’s a really nice girl as well, so hopefully we’ll work on some more stuff together.’

Is dubstep an area you’d like to move into a bit more?
‘Maybe, yeah. There’s one track on my album and a jungle track as well, which has got a lot of plays from the dubstep guys like Skream. There’s a lot of really good dubstep available at the moment, especially, guys like Benga and a lot of the Magnetic Man stuff as well is really strong. It’s really nice to see it doing well, especially now tracks like ‘I Need Air’ getting into the top 10. It’s great that what is essentially underground music getting into the charts without having to compromise too much of its style, so it’s definitely something I’d like to move into more.’

When you sit down to produce is it like the dancefloor is always at the forefront of your mind or is it consciously making tracks for the dancefloor?
‘It is to an extent. I’m trying to find a balance stuff to be detailed enough for home listening and to be effective enough for in a club. I really love tracks that work on those two levels, like "Coma Cat" by Tensnake, which works in all environments. I’m trying to aim for music that, while it’s heavy, has a lot of melody and stuff.’

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R7KEve9Eqew

What can we expect from your set at East Village?
‘A whole mix of stuff really: D&B, a whole load of dubstep, a bunch of house tunes – I really like to mix it up. I tend to try and keep it new stuff, maybe I’ll draw some stuff from old D&B tunes and maybe some old jungle, but it’s mostly contemporary music of different styles. I always write music for my sets that are special so that no one else has them, so there’ll no doubt be some special mixes of my tracks in there.’

You’re closing Ibiza Rocks next week – did you ever think that Ibiza would welcome D&B?
‘No, not at all. I’d been going there on holiday and listening to other types of music there for years and this summer’s the first time I’ve been to play. I’ve already been to play at Space and Eden this summer and both nights have been really good. Some of the more established nights have really taken it on and it’s really starting to work. Nights like Ibiza Rocks and Reclaim the Dancefloor, its sister club night, started as the alternatives to that stuff and there are plenty of people who go to Ibiza now that are into that more bassline-orientated music.’

You can get the abridged version of this interview in Time Out this week, but to read it in full, check it after the jump.

DJ History on the record player revolutionaries

Some DJs are more than just nerdy looking blokes flipping records on and off some decks. Or, these days, should we say: more than just over-gelled sunnies-clad types with fluorescent teeth who look like they’ve been duct-taped to the Playa d’en Bossa sands. Anyone may be able to DJ, but few are real musical revolutionaries of their time. Few are those responsible for the type of spaces we call nightclubs, the reason we groan when one BPM doesn’t flow seamlessly into the next during a set and why it’s perfectly acceptable to her hip hop jumbled up with electronic music. And fewer are worth interviewing about it.

According to this new book ‘The Record Players: DJ Revolutionaries’ from DJ History, some, like Danny Rampling, are even responsible for the way that we dance to dance music. It’s the latest compendium from dance music historians Frank Broughton and Bill Brewster, authors of ‘Last Night A DJ Saved My Life’. You can download a sampler here.

They’ve picked through some 250 interviews from the past decade to present the world’s most important selectors, among them John Peel, Fabio, Francis Grasso and, well, Jimmy Savile. It’s the kind of book that you imagine will sit on coffee tables in record label lobbies, but you hope will inspire mp3-hopping new jocks, as well as make similarly serious record collectors and dance nerds dribble.

Ahead its release into bookshops nationwide, we find out exactly who is on that list, from the technological innovators to the forgotten radicals.

How did you whittle down the list of influential DJs for the book?
Frank: "It was really hard! Our rule of thumb was that it’s not just a great interview or a great DJ, it has to be someone who’s played a part in the history or represents something so that it’s not just a collection of interviews."

What’s your favourite anecdote from the book?
Frank: "[New York DJ innovator] Francis Grasso’s, about him DJing in a club when Jimi Hendrix he walks in, walks into the men’s room and is completely dazed. And he’s forgot to put his dick back in his trousers. [Francis is] just standing there and he doesn’t really know what to do. I’m not sure that he tucked it back in for him, but I think he maybe said, you know, 'Aren’t you forgetting something there Jim?'"

Bill: "Francis Grasso had loads of great stories about getting blown in the DJ booth while he was playing. He dated Liza Minnelli, he lived with Jimi Hendrix – he was the original superstar DJ in New York a long time before we’d ever heard of superstar DJs and a very important person in terms of being the first person to mix records in a way that we recognise today."

Who is the most unexpected entry?
Frank: "People are always surprised when we write about Jimmy Savile, as most people know him as a TV personality. But he is there because, more than anyone, he took the world from bands to DJs."

Bill: "When we were interviewing the early mod and ’50s DJs, a lot of them kept saying to us: “You’ve really got to talk to Jimmy Saville. He’s the person that started all of this.” And we were like, “Really? Are you sure?” but so many people said it that we had to take it seriously. He was certainly the first guy in the UK to do all of this. What he was doing with DJing was so popular that he used to pay bands not to play so that he could DJ because the musicians ruled in those days and there had to be a live band at a Mecca ballroom He introduced the idea of playing recorded music to an audience as, not an inferior alternative to hearing a live band, but [as] its own entity."

Why are there no women on the list?
Frank: "It’s really just a matter of history. If only the DJs that have made a significant contribution to the craft of DJing or to club culture are going to make the cut, I don’t think there are any women. When dance music and club culture was being formed, a lot of it was in gay clubs in New York or in the Northern Soul clubs in Britain, which were very, very male[-dominated]."

Will the list surprise a lot of people?
Bill: "I hope so. We’ve got everyone from Tiesto to Jimmy Saville – that’s a pretty broad range of people by anyone’s estimations."

Does the book reflect how clubbing has changed as well as DJing?
Bill: "A little bit. I think the story of clubbing over the past 20 years has been more about marketing than it has about innovation. There have been a lot of technological innovations over the last 20 years but there are no fundamental differences between how people danced to records in 1971 in a New York disco to how they do now."

Why is the art of DJing still so important?
Frank: "We’ll always need DJs because we’ll always need someone who knows more about music than us. The amount of work that people put in, in terms of sifting through crap records to find the good ones: that’s the real work of a DJ. It’s listening to a load of shit so everyone else doesn’t have to."

Bill: "It’s more important now in a lot of ways than it was 20 or 30 years ago, because these days, everybody has got access to so much music. When I was a kid, you had one crappy little record shop that you went to and they sold the Top 40 in Boots and that was it. Now, we’re saturated by media, so the role of the DJ is to really filter out all of that crap and present you with the five per cent of really good records."

What makes a truly legendary DJ?
Bill: ‘Someone who has a unique and distinct path of their own. A really great example of that these days is Andrew Weatherall. He’ll play boshing techno to a load of Germans one day and then a load of rockabilly to some people in a pub in the East End the next night. He’s just a real polymath when it comes to music, like Larry Levan, Ron Hardy, Grandmaster Flash, who, not only was a great DJ, but changed music fundamentally with what he did with creating breaks and stitching them together. A really great DJ is someone who changes things, whether it’s Tom Moulton creating the 7-inch single and pioneering the remix or Frankie Knuckles, who was instrumental in creating house music."

Do DJs still have the power to change popular music?
Bill: ‘They do, but when DJing and dance music was in the popular press a lot and [when it became] very big and very fashionable to be into it, a lot of people got it completely wrong and spent a lot of time going on about superclubs and superstar DJs. And that really wasn’t what it was about. That’s kind of like saying that Robbie Williams and N-Dubz are changing music. I think the people who change music aren’t necessarily massively in the public eye – a lot of them are forgotten figures and get left behind. Francis Grasso and Kool Herc, who started the idea of just playing breaks, are really good examples of that. Most people wouldn’t have a clue who they were."

'The Record Players: DJ Revolutionaries’ by DJ History is £16.95 via www.djhistory.com and all good bookshops nationwide from Monday August 30. Catch their night Secret Weapons at Horse & Groom on Aug 20.

Francis Grasso: The groundbreaker
‘He was the first modern DJ, the first guy to realise that it was his [about] performance, his set, his sequencing, and not just the records. He dated Liza Minelli, spent more than his rent on drugs and went on three-day benders with Jimi Hendrix.’

David Mancus: Party messiah
‘Mancuso did more than anyone to create the kind of club environment we take for granted: where the music is central, where the dancefloor is the focus, where the soundsystem is loud and clear. Before him, nightclubbing was mostly society chit-chat.’

Grandmaster Flash: Scientist of the mix
‘Hip hop could not have existed without him. Before samplers, he worked out a way to be a sampler, to loop up a break from two copies of the same record without losing the beat. It took him a year to get right.’

Danny Rampling: Acid house evangelist
‘Acid house was the most revolutionary thing to happen to British culture since the war. When house and ecstasy combined, the way we partied changed overnight forever. Danny understood it right away and led from the front. Even the way you dance comes from Danny.’

Jimmy Savile: Dance hall disrupter
‘He’s never owned a record, he didn’t really care about the music he played, he just knew that a disc jockey could deliver better music than a band for less money.’